1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a locking apparatus which locks a door on a main part of a game machine.
2. Description of the Related Art
In general, a housing constituting a main part of a game machine has a vertically elongated construction and, therefore, a locking apparatus for locking a door on the main part of the game machine is required to lock the door against breaking at a plurality of portions of the door which are spaced in the vertical direction. Hitherto, therefore, a locking apparatus of the kind described has a lock provided on the door at a position near one side edge thereof and a vertically movable locking bar which also is provided on the door. The locking bar is operatively connected to the shaft of the lock such that the locking bar moves up and down in accordance with the rotation of the lock. The locking bar is provided with a plurality of locking pawls which are spaced in the vertical direction, while engaging members engageable with the locking pawls are provided on the main part of the game machine. All the locking pawls are simultaneously brought into or out of engagement with the associated engaging members simply by a vertical stroking of the locking bar. This type of arrangement is disclosed, for example, in Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 8-155118.
In the known locking apparatus of the type described above, the door carries the vertically elongated locking bar, the lock, and all the members which operatively connect the lock to the locking bar. Consequently, the weight of the door assembly undesirably increases to cause various problems or inconveniences. For instance, the door is required to have a high level of rigidity to carry the heavy weight, and the hinge between the door and the main part of the game machine also has to have a strength high enough to support the heavy weight of the door assembly, resulting in a rise of costs of production of the game machine.
The problems described above would be eliminated if the arrangement is such that only the engaging members are carried by the door, while other components such as the locking bar and the lock are mounted on the main part of the game machine. In such a case, however, the number of parts to be secured to the main part of the game machine increases tremendously, so that a large installation space has to be preserved in the main part of the game machine in order to accommodate these parts.